


went down a storm

by penhaligon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25787341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: Statements of assorted avatars and fear-adjacent individuals, regarding unusual storm-related phenomena along the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States.
Kudos: 7





	1. Simon

**Author's Note:**

> Came up with a Vast avatar OC because the Vast is the superior entity and the concept of "storm chaser turned avatar" is funny, then asked myself "how many ways can this character interact with canon while never actually leaving her home turf?" and had ideas as a result.
> 
> Not actually a statement fic, just a series of interconnected ficlets.

The shrieks echo throughout the emptiness, delicious and eternal. A pity, really -- the fellow has been not entirely irritating to deal with, and one simply can't underestimate the value of pleasant individuals with which to do business. But Mr. Guidry is as ephemeral as the rest and belongs to the Titan now, and the person on the other end, inasmuch as there _is_ another end here, is far more interesting.

So Simon moves. He sidesteps, and he falls. He lands, and he isn't entirely sure where, until he tastes it on the air.

The Crescent City itself. Why, they're in Mr. Guidry's own condo. How bold.

The young woman's dark hair moves, and not with the wind that howls through the broken window. Her eyes, dark and turbulent, narrow on Simon as he appears, and the wind that comes not from the tropical storm outside snaps forward, long fingers of nothing a breath away from seizing him. Simon sidesteps again, in and out of the empty, but it's a close call, and he and his suit return windswept and ruffled.

It isn't always, that those who are chosen and who choose in turn are able to stomach the _feeding_ part. After all, the Titan's allure is multifaceted, as much an indelible fact of the universe as it is a product of fear. This one, though-- this one looks at Simon like she's thinking about tossing him out the window next, and that's good. Very good.

"No need for that, my dear," Simon says, and he doesn't get close. He's sure he could win, if drawn into a tussle, but there's no need to test the assumption. "I'm sure you have questions, and I'm happy to provide answers. We're alike, you see. Surely you can tell?"

The woman hesitates. The wind dies down, though her hair still tosses and turns and floats like it never left. "Who are you?" she asks, suspicious. Her voice rings, like the room is hollow, like the void is only a step or two away.

"Simon Fairchild, at your service." Simon doffs an imaginary hat. "You may recognize the name Fairchild Aerospace or Empyrean Transport, if you're from around here. That would be me. But before I get to explaining all of the strange things you've no doubt experienced, would you mind answering one simple question for me?"

The woman considers it. There's still a glint of otherwise, in her eyes. _Very_ good. "Go ahead," she says finally, folding her arms. Defensive or relaxed?

"Why did you target Mr. Guidry?" Simon asks pleasantly.

She doesn't look defensive. She looks at Simon hard and scrutinizing, like she's seeing the edges of something not quite visible. "You said we're alike," the woman says, the words carrying the ring of a mind made up. She believes a perfect stranger about that, simply because she has no choice but to accept what already sings loud and sweet and all-encompassing beneath her skull. "He was... kind of like that? Almost? I could tell." She shrugs. "Plus, he seemed like an ass."

Mr. Guidry had been someone who'd _facilitated_ quite a few unorthodox ventures on Simon's behalf. Little test runs, for the grander thing down the road. Had never quite committed to the void like Simon had, but had been happy enough to play along.

How very bold indeed, to make a first victim out of one's almost-equal. She's chosen the Titan, so thoroughly that Simon keeps his distance from the winds their patron has granted her, but there's a scent of _chase_ about her, too. Perhaps even a bit of _flame_ on top of that. He's gotten quite good at sniffing out that sort of thing, over the many years.

This will be one to keep an eye on, and Simon is already looking forward to it. He nods, plastering an affable grin across his face and clapping his hands together. "Wonderful."

* * *

"But what _is_ it?" Dani asks rather unintelligibly, around a mouthful of the very best and most expensive this city has to offer, after the storm is long gone.

Simon hasn't even finished reading her obituary yet. It's difficult to make headway, when she has three questions at a time waiting in the wings, every time he finishes answering another one. She wouldn't do half bad under the Watcher, either. But the obituary paints a picture for Simon and tells him that she's exactly where she's supposed to be.

It isn't that she was very popular on Twitter or that she leaves behind no family except for parents who almost certainly didn't write this. It's the sense of _movement_ within this brief snapshot of her life. Restless and unmoored. Almost college-educated, except for never finishing. Visited nearly as many places as there are states in this massive country. Even the phrase _storm chaser_ and how charming it is: she does have a touch of the Hunt about her, but those types pursue goals and targets like hounds to blood, and Dani clearly never had.

Except for one singular goal. Except for the storm, in all of its colossal glory. Danica Fontenot had driven into one most terrible, the obituary laments, and never come out.

"I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for you," Simon says, setting his phone down on the table. Out of the sixteen available spaces for seating in this fine establishment, theirs is the only one occupied. That's what money gets you. Dani hadn't looked impressed. "A creature? A place? A god? A demon? A concept made manifest? None of these things? All of these things? I couldn't even begin to tell you."

The next course comes, complete with an explanation from a chef. Simon listens politely. Dani listens like a whirlwind of impatience will explode out of her, given enough time. Understandable, considering all that Simon has just explained to her, which does tend to leave a head reeling. But not a particularly compatible trait for the Titan, and neither is her past social media preening, also open on Simon's phone. Their patron knows best, however, which hearts sing the same song, and Simon resumes when the chef has retreated.

"What does it feel like to you?" he asks.

Dani stops with fingers around a spoon. She lowers it, next course all but forgotten, and something clouds her eyes. Wondering, venerating. Hungry for so much more than food.

"I don't really know," Dani says. "It's like there's something waiting there, in the storm, and I can never reach it, even when I'm smack in the middle of the eye. But... I like that. And getting close to it feels _good_." She pauses, thoughtful, then tries again. "I was never scared of storms. I knew they didn't want to hurt me. Even when I was a kid, I knew. I got older, and I tried to tell myself that it was just one of those crazy things that kids thought. But I always knew I was feeling _something_. Just never knew what it was or how to describe it. Still don't." She takes a breath. Tries the name out, curious, reverent. " _The Vast_."

"Well," Simon says, "there's your answer." Their patron is, by nature, difficult to sum up, but it all sounds about right, and a tad Hunt-touched too. Unsurprising, for a storm chaser. "They are what we make them to be, really. That's what I think, at least. You love your storms, and now? You command them yourself."

Dani considers this and appears to accept it, then and there. Maybe not so suited for the Watcher after all. "And there are more like it," is all she says, more rumination than question.

"Indeed," Simon answers anyway. "Which means there are quite a lot of us, all going about our lives, doing our part to tend to our patrons. And that brings me to another question." He pauses to take a sip of wine, numbering roughly one hundred and fifty American dollars. "How are you planning to live _your_ life? You are officially dead, after all."

Dani shrugs, like the idea doesn't bother her. Her cascading hair moves with it and moves of its own accord too, subtle floaty motion that is easily missed. Like wind still blows somewhere, only for her. "I'll figure it out."

Truly not prone to goals, then, which might have ultimately shut her out from the Hunt. "I see," Simon says. "Are you expecting three meals a day to fall out of the sky? I'm afraid our patron doesn't work like that."

Dani gapes at him, more than she had at anything else he'd said today. "I still need to eat?" she demands, indignant.

Simon arches a delicate eyebrow at her. "You're eating right now."

Dani looks down at her dish, then back up, a scowl planting itself between her eyes. "I thought it was just, like, for _fun_."

"Sorry to disappoint," Simon says, smiling at the aghast look on her face. "We're not gods, you know."

Dani considers this, looking none too happy, and says, " _Ugh._ "

Simon chuckles. A reasonable assumption to make, he supposes, after being told that _feeding_ would be a little different from what she was used to. "Well," he says, and he slips a pristine business card out of an equally pristine pocket and offers it to her, "if you find yourself in financial need, you are always welcome to give me a call."

Dani reaches out to take it, then stops. A shadow crosses her face, a storm cloud blotting out the sun. "If you're expecting something from me, old man," she says, and the air tastes like ozone, thick and tangy and ominous, "you can forget it."

Simon's ears throb, seconds away from popping, as the air around him warps with pressure. She'll be a right terror in no time, Simon thinks happily, and not for the first time, he wonders why the Desolation was apparently unable to lay claim. "Not at all," he says, and he pokes absently at an ear lobe, as the pressure begins to abate. "It's just something I do. I'm only a blip in the grand scheme of things, after all, and that goes for what I feed back to our patron. But the more of us there are -- acting successfully, that is -- the more it thrives. It's simply an indirect way of doing my part."

The air clears, and so do Simon's ears. The cloud passes from Dani's face, and she takes the card, eyeing it with suspicious interest. It has a direct line to Simon etched in gilded gold. Let it never be said that he doesn't make an effort.

"And I have an arrangement with several others of our kind," Simon adds. "We all carry the name Fairchild, despite having no blood relation. That _does_ come with certain expectations, though. Have to keep up appearances, you see, and certain projects require... expert attention and time. But if you're interested in joining our little family, you're welcome to."

Dani lifts her eyebrows at him, the picture of thinly polite rejection. "Thanks," she says, "but I'm good."

Ah, well. Can't win over everyone, and the answer suggests that she prefers to work alone. Perhaps she has a touch of the Forsaken, too. Her obituary certainly leans that way, and it so often pairs well with the Titan. "If you ever change your mind," Simon says, "we'll be here."

His eyes drift down to contemplate the dish in front of him. There are myriad subtle ways to overwhelm that don't require a peek at the void, and that's why he likes to bring others here, when he's in town. This establishment only offers a single fifteen-course meal, and though the portion sizes could be larger, the number of courses combined with the prices and ostentatious ambiance are usually sufficient to leave the other person feeling a tad small.

Dani clearly doesn't feel small. Not uncomfortably so, at least, and not at the hands of any once-human. Not at the hands of anything except her new god. That much is obvious, from the judgmental eye she casts on the dollar amounts, from the lingering aftertaste of ozone. From the way she absorbs all that Simon has told her like he's handed her a vital missing piece.

"Why don't we skip out on the rest?" Simon asks, pointedly pushing his plate aside. No need to waste effort on something that isn't working.

The restaurant is paid for the full meal, of course. He may be a monster, but he's more than fair. They step out onto Magazine Street, and the press and hum of bodies and life within the city is an enjoyable deluge of sensation. They are only two people among the teeming numbers, after all, and Simon always tries to remember to relish that. Easy to forget, sometimes, when one is old and wealthy and gifted with powers of unnatural origin.

"See you later, I guess," Dani says, halfway gone already, as the warm breeze of the packed city street picks up around them.

"Many times, I hope!" Simon calls out to her retreating back, and his voice pitches louder by a fraction. "And Dani?"

She turns. Gives him an even look, as people stream past.

"Don't ever threaten me again," Simon says pleasantly.

Dani's expression doesn't shift, cool and appraising. "Pay up first," she says, with a roll of her eyes, "if you're fixing to start making demands."

And then she's gone, and even Simon isn't quite sure if she disappears into the throng or into the void that sings to them both. He smiles at nothing in particular, thumbing his pockets thoughtfully and humming to himself as he basks in the rumble of the city.

They're going to get along just fine, he thinks.


	2. Adelard

Adelard can occasionally be accused of thinking on his feet, instead of thinking ahead. Instinct goes a long way in his line of work, the nature of these things often _felt_ more than rationally puzzled out. He prides himself on being able to account for variables both ahead of time and in the moment, and it's a skill that has rarely let him down.

Today is not a shining example of thinking ahead.

It isn't a shining day at all. The hurricane bears down past the coast, and Adelard tracks leads as quickly and haphazardly as he can, but the state of emergency and the storm itself slows travel, and he arrives at the storm surge barrier in the middle of what is nearly the worst of it.

He doesn't want to know what will happen if the barrier breaks -- or, more accurately, if it breaks under the influence of something preternaturally hell-bent on wreaking destruction. But the man he has reluctantly enlisted for help is already there, cutting a path down the parapet that stretches like a long, narrow finger across the waterway. It's a barely visible tableau, between the windy fury and pouring rain, but the parapet is stark white in the murky gloom, and Hunters have a way of drawing the eye.

There are more of them than Adelard expects, because this isn't the sign of an Extinction avatar at all.

It's a Desolation crew.

Adelard stands at the edge of the waterway, where the short grass and the concrete slope down to join the turbulent dark water. Enormous gray bands of tempestuous clouds paint the sky as far as the eye can see, unleashing their fury upon the earth. At his left, the parapet and barrier beneath it extend outward from the land, and the Hunter is a blur in the distance, locked in combat with something along the narrow stone.

But Adelard's spine prickles with a chill under his raincoat, and he whips around and sees a man behind him, and he knows that this is the Desolation, because the man glows, thin and growing cracks webbing his visible skin like lines of magma, bright orange in the murk. A gun is halfway out of the man's coat, and it, too, is Desolation, because Adelard can smell it from here, an acrid gunpowder stink that waters the eyes and promises pain beyond ordinary bullets.

There's no time to go for the pistol nestled at his side. This is going to _hurt_.

The bullet explodes out of the barrel, fiery despite the rain, the reverb lost to the wind.

It doesn't land.

Adelard recoils on instinct, but the Desolation avatar stares up past him, eyes wide, and when no explosive pain follows, Adelard risks a quick glance up, lest he be caught off guard by a threat from behind.

A figure stands on the edge of the parapet wall, several meters out into the water. A woman, he thinks, in dark clothes whose color is lost to the gray of the storm. Her long dark hair whips wildly about. The wind howls, and the woman balances precariously, but she does not fall. Adelard notes, distantly, that it isn't raining anymore. At least, not here, in an eerie and growing circle of relative calm, though sheets still pour down upon the waterway and the road in all directions.

The woman smiles, distinctly unfriendly, and reaches out into the air, into nothing at all, her arm going fuzzy as if briefly concealed behind a gossamer film. She withdraws something small and round, the motion quick and fluid--

\--and immediately flails, fingers splaying and hand thrashing as the object goes flying over the parapet into the water below. " _Ow!_ " the woman yells, just audible over the rush of storm. She curls around her hand and somehow doesn't tip off of the narrow parapet wall, even though she leans and sways far too much to stay on her feet. "Jesus fuck! Fuck!"

Adelard snaps into a run, taking advantage of the distraction to sidestep away, and in the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of more smoky figures appearing out of the gloom, across the road and surrounding open space. He calculates, automatic: the trick with Desolation avatars is not to let them touch you. Easier said than done, but roughly a ton of steel and aluminum should do the trick, in a pinch.

He's in the rental car in several pounding steps, door slammed shut and key in ignition, and luckily, the Desolation crew is too focused on their new enemy to pay him much mind. They converge on the woman who is almost certainly an avatar of the Vast, and as she jumps off of the parapet and lands on solid ground, the man who'd fired the gun is knocked clean off of his feet by an impossible gust of wind that cuts sideways, at odds with the direction of the storm winds. The man sails into the water below, and Adelard wonders if he will surface again.

The rest of the Desolation crew moves fast, aglow with the light of their patron, fiery figures in the gray bearing down on the lone Vast avatar.

Adelard calculates again, sparing it no more than a moment: leave two problems to potentially sort themselves out?

No-- instinct tells him that the woman can clarify a few details for him, if amenable. Vast avatars aren't typically wanton in their murderous tendencies, like their Desolation brethren, and she'll certainly be getting her fill by the time they're done here. She just might win, with or without help, considering that she seems to be in her element, literally. But it might help Adelard to have some other distraction around, should his Hunter ally prove a little too bloodthirsty today, agreement aside.

So Adelard slams on the accelerator and drives straight at the crowd closing in near the edge of the waterway.

The woman will be fine. Of that, Adelard has no doubt, if she can pull a bullet off of its course. Desolation avatars are not so gifted in the ways of bypassing and eluding, however, and so Adelard's car slams into steaming bodies with an almighty crunch. Time accelerates too, a blur of motion, yanking on the wheel and hitting the brakes and trying to catch as many of them as he can in the sweep of the car's body. For a moment, he thinks that he overdid it, that he's about to sail into the water too, but though the wind and the water seem to converge, to suck the Desolation avatars into their waiting maws, they don't reach for Adelard too.

The car skids to a halt, dangerously, just abreast of the edge of the waterway.

He'd missed one. The glowing figure in view of the windshield lunges at the car, enraged, but something thunks on the car's hood, and a flash of light darts across the windshield, thin and arcing and so bright that Adelard is forced to screw his eyes shut. When he opens them again, the figure twitches just visible on the ground, glow fading and folding back into normal skin.

Adelard takes a deep breath, shrugging off the growing ache of adrenaline and activity in aged muscle and bone, readying himself in case of more, then opens the driver's door and steps out.

The rain is still missing, and the wind has calmed too, the roar of the storm reduced to a murmur, though the gloom doesn't lift, the gray band of clouds above them as thick and roiling as ever. The storm rages all around them, but the open space alongside the waterway and the barrier rests easy. Adelard knows that the actual eye of the storm is some distance away, and the epicenter of this particular eye vaults down from the top of the rental car, an unnatural leap that puts her right in front of Adelard.

The woman's hair floats around her shoulders, subdued twists and turns as if gravity is weaker here and hidden wind still tosses about. She's young, and roughly in her twenties, Adelard estimates. She isn't very tall, and she stands easy and straight-backed and doesn't appear to be in a hurry to feed him to her patron too.

"Nice one, old man," the woman says, gesturing to the car with a grin.

Dents and a few scorch marks now mar the metal, and Adelard spends a second grimacing at it. If there's any DNA on it, he might have to abandon it somewhere, which is why he uses more than a few false names across the world. "Call it repaying a favor," Adelard says, dipping his head in thanks and ignoring the moniker. The woman doesn't look at him like he's food, but he speaks carefully all the same. "I think I owe you my life. The bullet didn't burn your fingers too much, I hope?"

That might be treading a dangerous line, but the woman only snorts and looks vaguely embarrassed. "Nah," she says, and she holds up a hand with no trace left of any injury. Far too inhuman for him to handle, then, but the Hunter is nearby, if necessary. "Didn't just want to leave it in there, you know? It's gross."

Adelard nods politely.

The woman eyes him curiously, but before either of them can say another word, a gunshot rings out. The no-longer-glowing body on the ground in front of the rental car jerks, and a burly figure lands nearby, swaying and blood-splattered. Even cloaked in the gray haze of this artificial eye, there's an all-too-apparent tinge to the Hunter's gaze that Adelard doesn't like, wide-eyed and hungry. Adelard's fingers stray to his side, to the pistol there. Not that it'll do much against a full-fledged Hunter, besides buy time.

But the woman turns and eyes the Hunter next, distinctly unimpressed, and the man's eyes widen even further, whites too prominent.

"You," he says, blood in his teeth too, and it isn't full of friendly recognition, either.

"Me," the woman says.

And the Hunter falls shrieking into the water below, as if yanked by the hands of a giant.

Well, Adelard thinks, as the wind settles. It's a good thing she doesn't seem keen on doing the same to him. He sighs all the same. "That was a rather useful contact of mine," he says. It's not easy, finding the right and amenable kinds of avatars to ally with, in order to corral their more unruly brethren. Hunters in particular are so volatile. This one, at least, had been more or less capable of minding any deals made.

The woman scoffs. "That was the bottom of the barrel," she says, turning back to Adelard and assessing him with a sweep of her eyes. "You're not one of us."

Perhaps it's time to start looking elsewhere, then. Adelard doesn't offer a hand, still soaked with rain that no longer falls from above, but he draws himself up and nods again. It's always a gamble, any attempt to make new allies out of monsters. But even though his instincts have been rather poor today, in tracking and identifying what he seeks, he usually has a good head for opportunities. "Adelard Dekker," he says. "I often do business with your kind. I'm... searching for something of a rare nature."

The woman's eyes alight with interest. "Name's Dani," she says easily, folding her arms and regarding him appraisingly. "With an i. Did you think you'd find it here?"

"I hoped to," Adelard says, and his eyes flick to the towering shadow of the surge barrier behind her. "Florida, two months ago. Another storm. There were reports of unusually severe damage to critical structures, disproportionate with the storm's impact and trajectory, and completely unexplainable. Was that you?"

"That was them," Dani says, jerking a thumb at the body of the Desolation avatar nearby. "I got there a little late. What did you think it was?"

It makes sense, in retrospect. The Desolation isn't _only_ associated with flames, after all, only favorable to them, and the storms that have battered this stretch of the United States over the past decade might naturally draw its attention. Adelard masters his disappointment. "I believe we are in the midst of a new emergence," he says. "Another power to join the others. I've taken to calling it Extinction."

"Yeah," Dani says, unsurprised. "I've heard Simon Fairchild mention it once or twice."

Of course. Adelard would expect nothing less, from the Vast's kind. "Then you have some sense of what it refers to?"

Dani gets a thoughtful look to her. She glances out at the waterway, at the sheets of rain dancing on top of the water in a million indentations, and her gaze grows distant, like she's looking at something far beyond him, beyond the water, beyond anything. Adelard wonders what she sees, when she looks into the Vast. What any avatar sees. "End of the world?" Dani says, and she doesn't appear very bothered at the prospect. Adelard would expect that too, from a denizen of the sky. "End of humanity? Something like that."

"Something like that," Adelard agrees. "I've been tracking potential manifestations, gathering evidence. Among other things, it seems to deal with man-made creations and catastrophic change."

"And you thought a disproportionately bad tropical storm and a lot of weird damage to man-made structures could have been something," Dani concludes, and when Adelard nods, Dani casts another look of disgust at the body. "Sorry. It's just these assholes stepping out of their lane."

Adelard heaves a sigh. "I assumed as much," he said, "when they shot at me."

"Better luck next time," Dani says, like she means it.

Adelard takes a moment to bid farewell to this particular lead, mentally filing it away as an interesting encounter but of no relevance to his goal. It doesn't have to be for nothing, however, even if it lost him a contact, and Adelard regards the woman in front of him, weighing options. "It's not often that I see your kind defending humans," he ventures. "The damage could have been extensive, had they managed to break the barrier."

Dani shrugs. "This is my home," she says. "Well, south of here, actually, and when I was a kid. But still. You get attached to a place." Something hardens in the lines of her face, a transformation that leaves Adelard wanting to take an instinctive step back, that reminds him of the weight of the pistol at his side. "And storms are _mine_. They belong to the Vast. The Desolation can fuck right off."

"No love lost, then?" Adelard says, dry.

"None," Dani says, vehement.

That's promising. Those of the Desolation delight in inflicting pain and misery, and a grudge against that might just mean a degree of trustworthiness. Adelard studies her, cognizant of the artificial eye that maintains equilibrium around them. Of the people that Dani has summarily tossed into the maw of her patron, nearly a dozen today. "The storms here," he says, cautious, "it's been an active several years." He's done his research. She looks young, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Dani laughs, a harsh edge to it. "That's not me either," she says. " _Or_ the Vast." She unfolds her arms to gesture widely to the maelstrom around them. The damp clinging to Adelard is already starting to dry, but the rains rage on, some distance away, a steady drumbeat on pavement and water. "That's just... nature? Cycles? Climate change?" She shrugs again, as she drops her arms. "Hey, maybe it's your Extinction."

"I doubt that," Adelard says. If only things were so easy as looking towards natural disasters augmented by the failures of civilization. No, this emergence is a little harder to pin down, despite its grandiose nature. "Extinction of sorts, yes. But not what I'm looking for."

Dani sizes him up with a discerning look, another thing that instinctively pushes Adelard to move, to put distance between them, though Dani doesn't appear to find much to worry about. "Why? You looking for a patron?"

"I'll pass on that," Adelard says, meaning the patron and the question. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about such an emergence, and he likes a challenge, anyway. Call it a duty to humanity, call it curiosity, but it isn't easy to put into words, and he's no servant of the Eye, occasional alignment aside. He's certainly not looking to _serve_ Extinction. Though he supposes there's an allure to it all the same, if he's spent this long on its trail. "Can't a man want to save the world?"

Dani snorts, but it isn't particularly mocking. Just curious, as she looks him like she's trying to figure him out, reflecting his own scrutiny back at him. "Sure," she says. "But I think you're gonna be disappointed when you can't, my friend."

"Maybe that's true," Adelard says evenly. He's used to doubt, his own and Gertrude's and that of several others he's spoken to over the course of his search. It's only something to be weathered, like a storm. Not a reason to give up. "But I can certainly try. In the meantime," his tone grows pointed, because he knows better than to trust an avatar, and yet he needs one on hand, sometimes, and there's little point in wasting time shopping around for another one in this area, "you did eliminate my contact."

"He's not dead, technically," Dani says frankly. Like it doesn't bother her, consigning another to an eternal fall. Definitely not one to trust beyond what is absolutely necessary. "And he might find his way back out. The ones from other powers don't always _stick_ in there."

"Sounds like you've tested that," Adelard says, and Dani nods, smug. It's not something he'd expect from a servant of the Vast, but given the implication that she's been pursuing these Desolation avatars, not to mention the manner in which the Hunter had reacted to her... it might be fruitful, trading one American contact in this region for another. He's never seen a Hunter stop a bullet from landing before, to put it mildly. "Seems dangerous."

"But fun," Dani says, a passing gleam in her eyes that reminds Adelard, oddly, of the Hunter who now sinks somewhere out beyond the waterway. "And sure, I can be a contact for you. I'm guessing you need a bruiser sometimes?"

Perhaps she's a little brighter than she seems, despite recklessly targeting other avatars and putting bare fingers to a freshly fired Desolation bullet. "That would be the gist," Adelard says. "When I'm in this part of the world, at least. Not often, but as you can see, my work sometimes involves... conflict."

"Really?" Dani asks, sardonic, but she produces a phone from somewhere in the depths of her dark blue coat. "Chasing catastrophe leads to some fights?"

Adelard arches an eyebrow at her. "You would know, wouldn't you?"

Dani laughs and gives him a number to call if he needs, and Adelard's battle-ready nerves are able to relax, finally, when she takes a few steps back. The eye around them begins to shrink, sheets of rain and gusts of wind swirling in closer, louder and louder with every passing second.

"Good luck," Dani says, giving him a little salute. "With, uh... Extinction. Or not." Her foot slides back against the grass, like she's about to launch into a run -- or into the air -- but she pauses. "Not sure if I want to believe you."

"To tell you truth," Adelard says, hand on the driver's door, "neither am I."

Dani smiles, a small, amused thing, like the idea of Extinction is not quite enough to concern her for long. And then she's gone, almost too fast for the eye to see, a blur of movement and a twisting of wind.

But the storm doesn't close in, thundering and torrential, until Adelard is safely back in the driver's seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, this is in 2012, so they probably don't meet again, but Dani 🤝 Adelard: relentless pursuit of catastrophe.


End file.
